Fanlore's Journal

Only read six books each month due to uh. STILL struggling through the Brothers Karamazov lol

Flesh by David Szalay

Started in Jan, finished Feb 1st. Everyone hyping this up was fucking right. Killer last line.

Strange Houses by Uketsu

Worse than Strange Pictures, so probably a good decision to publish that one first in English. I didn’t like how it was all just people explaining things to each other instead of… things happening. But it was still a kind of interesting puzzle thing.

Good Luck, Babe! by Erin Baldwin

The Netgalley arc went kinda viral so I grabbed one. It was okay, but the relationship didn’t work for me: the reason for their rift felt too contrived and poorly resolved.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Read it for friend group book club lol. Also lived up to the hype! I liked reading it. Saved more detailed thoughts for book club.

Heart the Lover by Lily King

I read it half-wondering how it tied into Writers and Lovers and then I got to the reveal and was like Ohhhhhh. Really good, good follow-up/companion/sequel book and good on its own. King is so good at setting up multiple love interests that feel believable as characters the protagonist would be interested in.

Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin

Short book that took me forever to read, for some reason. I think I found Lazi’s head difficult to inhabit. Interesting, but I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it? The crocodile sections were funny, but the dialogue felt kind of stiff (translation casualty?)

Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood

I checked this out because I wanted to learn what the Ali Hazelwood fuss was about but refused to read reskinned Reylo and you know what maybe I should’ve taken my chances on the Reylo. The narrative voice was actually fine. I thought it’d be cringe/overly twee from what I’ve heard about her writing, but I thought it sounded very standard-issue het romance novel.

But oh my god. It’s an age gap romance where instead of the two central characters having character flaws they develop past over the course of the narrative, the two central characters are just perfect for each other and the only, THE ONLY point of conflict is that one of them is older. Not even that he has different values because he’s older. Age in this book is pretty much literally just a number. All their arguments are just “I’m too old 4 u” “no ur not” and it’s so repetitive and so POINTLESS because the age gap has NO CONSEQUENCES. He’s her older brother’s best friend and the older brother doesn’t even object to the relationship!

I did like the Sicily setting and there’s some fun set pieces and comic misfortunes that occur. The side characters are fine. Honestly even the main characters are fine in isolation, I just feel like the whole concept of an age gap romance was fumbled here. The book probably would’ve been better if they were the same age just because that way the author would’ve had to find a more interesting conflict for them. The rest of it mostly worked though!

Season’s Change by Cait Nary

I really liked this book mostly because it reminded me of Crossfire, my favorite fanfiction, except if Miyuki was more traumatized and Sawamura was into yoga and therapy. I also liked Nary’s writing style, much less detailed than AO3 user Kittebasu’s but still very evocative. I think the author and I might have a mutual acquaintance? There was a familiar name in the acknowledgements section. Pretty good friends-to-lovers hockey romance novel, would recommend!

Us by Sara Soler
This was on hold from the QLL on Libby for at least a year and I don’t think it was worth it. Very “Trans 101”, interesting for the Barcelona-specific angle mostly, but I checked it out because I really liked Soler’s art style in the sample pages and I think she has a good graphic-memoir picture-voice. I would read more memoir from her. I like looking at her pictures. Worth maybe a month or two on Libby hold but not nearly a year of Libby hold lol.

Hot Girls with Balls by Benedict Nguyễn

Honestly was not expecting to like this one as much as I did. This is a satire about two Asian American trans girls playing men’s indoor volleyball and being internet influencers, while also being in a relationship with each other and dealing with so many levels of rivalry and jealousy. The no-quotation-marks style really works here, even if it was a little confusing sometimes, because it flattens the social media dialogue, internal dialogue, and spoken dialogue all into one thing, making them all seem equally important. The internet bits felt realistic and believable. It’s trying to do a lot and I think it mostly succeeds. I enjoyed it, actually! Even though there were somehow zero Haikyuu references. Minus half a point for not mentioning Haikyuu</3

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Read this for friend group book club and am thus saving all my best takes for the besties sorry. Reminded me of Sorokin’s work a little, but slightly less gross.

Lucky Bounce by Cait Nary

Finished reading this and then went to Nary’s website to be surprised that this was published after Season’s Change, because it feels like a step down from her earlier book. I liked how colorfully and specifically she described Philly (a town I feel an affinity with because I live near-ish to it lol) but there’s not a whole lot of… plot. I kept waiting for something to happen, like character development for either protagonist, maybe their secret relationship getting discovered or the kid’s mom coming back or something, but nope. Straightforward relationship progression with maybe half a conversation’s worth of friction between sex scenes. It wasn’t an unpleasant reading experience by any means, but it was much less memorable than Season’s Change. The overall story structure reminded me more of fanfiction than anything else I’ve read recently, including the former Reylo BNF.